246 Quotes by Émile Zola

When younger, he had been fun-loving to the point of tedium.

All round there was a rising tide of beer, widow Désir's barrels had all been broached, beer had rounded all paunches and was overflowing in all directions, from noses, eyes - and elsewhere. People were so blown out and higgledy-piggledy, that everybody's elbows or knees were sticking into his neighbour and everybody thought it great fun to feel his neighbour's elbows. All mouths were grinning from ear to ear in continuous laughter.

If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud.

Why then should money be blamed for all the dirt and crimes it causes? For is love less filthy - love which creates life?

The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.

Art is a corner of creation seen through a temperament.

And, in the warm silence, in the peaceful solitude of the study, Clotilde smiled down at the baby who was still sucking - his little arm in the air, pointing upwards, a symbol of hope and life.

Civilization will not attain to its perfection until the last stone from the last church falls on the last priest.

The thought is a deed. Of all deeds she fertilizes the world most.